The Unconquered
by Rapier09
Summary: Lain has lost her place in the world,Arisu and everything she believed in. Stranded in a different place with no sense of time/direction.....she must find her life anew.
1. Chapter 1

Iron city

Lain woke up in a daze, the sleep fell from her eyes as she rose. There was no monitor in the room, no connection to the wired.

I was a god

not in this place

She got up, stretched and stared at the ceiling for about an hour.

If nothing is real then what I am doing in this place

do you wish to see arisu again?

arisu doesn't want to see me anymore

A quick snap of her head, tears filled her eyes for a second. She snapped the clothes up on the floor and put them on. The scabbared Tengu on her side, the only tool she needed for this place.

still driven

do you miss your father?

oni-chan doesn't miss me

who taught you everything?

doesn't matter

A move out of the room out to stairs, made of rope, to the bottom of the hmmm "house". Reality stretched out in the room below.

A Table and some pans, a broken pot lay on the floor. She'd dropped it and had yet to clean it up.

another city to conquer

not true

another shade of reality

not this time

The walls looked like wood dipped in what would have been called Mayan blue…..a long long time ago. There was a grandeur to this place, everything felt light and everything felt hard.

"I miss Arisu. " she said aloud as she looked at a ceiling that had about several different light fixtures. The lights could be kept at a minimum for ambient lighting or they would like the entire living room.

There were slanted windows across the top of the wall. A door with a screen tied to it.

I forgot how I got here

does it matter?

I am always here

then why leave?

A move across floor that seemed to be oak along with the occasional square of limestone. A bit of water and some rice into a rice cooker that would have looked more ornamental if it was in a different setting. As is square with a pattern of feathers across the front and the back.

I need my connection to the wired

not now

I am Lain I am always Lain I am the Wired

not anymore


	2. Chapter 2

A Calypso

Note: I do not own Lain,I am not Lain. I just want to play her on the net.

Streets wider and more elaborate then they had any right to be along with wires stretching everywhere above. A light covering of salt water seemed to go over the street.

She'd be given padded shoes, like the ocean, the salt water flowed away from her wherever she walked.

apprehensive?

I've got to deal with god

As you have before?

…………..

The sky was always this weird shade of darkness and light. You saw the occasional person walking down the street usually up and about their business. There were those who waved and looked at her. No one seemed that intent to stare.

A breeze flowed smoothly up and down the streets. There was nothing that windy about it but it had an air of constant flow almost like it funneled out from the buildings and then absorbed itself back into the smooth street surface.

The houses themselves looked large, almost comically so, with the tops slanting downward street and upward towards the sky.

A different kind of twilight?

A different kind of dolphin?

……………..

It was midnight

now it is dawn?

……………..

There was a measure of activity as she walked across the surface, there were no cars but the pedestrians seemed to cross over bridges laying between the houses.

Some followed the street below, others crossed across the rope bridges. Bridges that literally formed a funnel around those using them.

are they really people?

how do you perceive them?

as something else

then you're safe

I was always safe

Rain like a thousand sprinklers and feeling unusually light fell across her forehead.

feeling lighter?

feeling grey

gray on gray rosser(conflict)?

カツヤ？(victory)

ええ(yes)

コーラ(coke)?

はい

Aloud

" あリス(Arisu) once called me an old lady those many years ago………….."

A wave from someone's hand on the other side.

A wave back.


	3. Chapter 3

Fallow dust

humanity is coming to an end?

it ended a long time ago

A distant sun sweeping across water laced with dozens of complex trace minerals drifting along wide avenues.

this isn't a repeat of earlier cycles……….

something broke earlier

manichaeus?

Peals of laughter so cold and charming at the same time seemed to drift from the homes around here.

a part of the beginning and a part of the end

I remember Arisu, I remember how she loved that teacher.

never cared for any セんセい( sensei, teacher)

except for that one?

we had a common experience

Dualism or Duelism?

Light and darkness

I turn into Arisu and I see one turn into Lain

too much a part of the world?

はい はい(ok ok)

A wave swept across rope bridges that seemed to hold steady even as drifting breezes seemed to be hovering all around them.

God helps those who help themselves?

and those who don't………….

I am not going to ask why

You didn't deserve to die

neither did they

A monument lay on a stony butte in the middle of one the streets. Columns of what seemed to be carbon (monoxide thought Lain looking at the patern) lay pierced with tiny imprints that went right through them ,all around them swirled streams of dust. Bits glinting as the light moved across them.

All around it, water that smelled of something else seemed to be swirl it while never really touching the columns.

Never forget


	4. Chapter 4

Ash Wind Seers

A walk past the monument, a look that was part awe and part respect. No regret or remorse in her eyes as she walked past the frozen CO forms The dust seemed to swirl in slower patterns in the pierced holes, holes like eyes, that went through the shapes.

There was no plaque and nothing suggesting that it was a trophy of any sort. Just the constant dust circling out past the shapes and up up towards the sky.

It stopped for a second as she gave it a final glance, a bow of her head and she walked under the rope bridges out past the salt water that swirled around her.

Under a light that seemed to phase in and phase out

iアリス(Arisu) is starting to live again

arise my girl and smell the ashes

It will make her forget about the earthquakes

When I had ashes in mind, I was thinking nuclear weapons

It works as well

how does she feel?

How would anyone who is been asleep for so long feel?

As long as she doesn't misunderstand me and go Trigun on me………..I will be fine

she is awed

she could never be awed

are you sure?

only thing that ever got to her was せんせい(teacher)

same せんせい that gets to you?

like a younger stupider version of me in an older package

pissed off because he reminds you what you used to be?

take away my oh so lambent humanity and that is quite possibly would you would get

He wants a world of obedient and ethical children, a world of human dummies because like me he thought it would be best to go this way

Mathematics over free will?

Compared to human math, which is basically self-genocide, it is a good thing

Now he learns human math and human thoughts

That Demographics favor the lighter skinned? That the girls are really masturbating about other girls and that the boys are masturbating about other boys?He gets to know that?

You built this world

It seemed so much more ordered so much cleaner now that I knew who "she thought about when she touched herself". What a stupid nightmare from a stupid person.

Then the humans messed it all up my lil "Hegemon"?

We've always had a lock on that title since アラースン(Arsun)

Always the same Lain

The Warsaw pact has cooled down though

So has アリス

Thank god for small favors

speaking of which

A look across streets that seemed flat but had the occasional ledge leading to terraces below. A sound of vague music and voices speaking. The sound of shells floating across tables. A feeling like water across her eyes, reaching through her nose.

A time to think and a time to ponder as she hesitated feeling the almost plastic feel of the streets. Always that layer of salt water

Always these layers that seem so complicated and yet so simple.

Was it worth it getting through them?

There is still more at least one more

The architect fears her maker?

ええ えずい

The great "spanking" in the sky?

I am me I am Lain and I am still me

What did she say when she first met you

no matter the world?

the world is gone


	5. Chapter 5

The Manichean Precedent

Lain bought her knees to the street and looked up for a moment. Sounds that weren't quite chimes or bells ringed the rooftops…………….

this is where I am heading?

Where else?

I was hoping for…………a harder assignment but now I see where the hard part is

so your maker?

はい は い(yes and yes) likewise

灰(はい/ashes?)

that too

A look at the stone buildings, the rounded exteriors and the rooftops that seemed to form a lasting crest up and down the street. The wind seeming to flit over them into the streets, truths that seemed to have been forgotten whispering into her ears.

She wrote on the streets おい(hey) meaning to write あい(love) instead. The plastic surface kept the word for a second and then the salt water flooded across and shifted it.

erasing my love are you?

のし was what was left (you)

where did that come from?

Time moving to a stop.

It could have something to do with あリス

choking my own life out of myself…………for what?

What is the real world?

A ball of paper that can be crumbled and burned

What is humanity?

………………

Better off dead or living?

Do they have a choice?

They made that choice a long time ago……………

A move over to a side street that ended in a ledge overlooking a place below the general level of the streets. The salt water flowed across a wooden parapet going over the level of the streets.

A voice

"So what are you doing up here Lain?"

Lain walked over the ledge and looked down then shifted over the parapet. Hitting the arms of a slight red-haired girl about 30 feet below. A hand across her legs, a slight brush and then being oh so gently let down to the ground floor. A façade of black and white overlooking a veranda.

2 streams of salt water flowing across it. An open smile from the girl and she seated herself on the chair looking out at the others present at the meeting.

A narrow and icy blond, a man who could have been of African descent and a girl with red hair and light tanned skin. A set of what looked like shells made out of a weird black metal that seemed to reflect colors in across the faces of those here. A light haired girl wearing and odd outfit that was decorated every inch by inch. Friendly but slightly touching ,in a way no human could ever be, eyes.

A face that could walk all over you and that choose not to.

The smell of light liquor and an odd scent not unlike tobacco. Files and documents displaced across a table that seemed to be made up of several layers. A sense of disorganization and a sense of purpose.

A time to meet and a time to kill.

Years ago the pressure almost killed her. These were different days but some things hadn't changed.


	6. Chapter 6

Snakes on A Gundam

"And for the Faith………"

odd way of sitting

A table oddly shaped and encumbered with everything from charts to decanters that smelled of odd smelling liquour.

A light feeling of air above her and the cries of a city slightly higher then then the meeting place.

A blond,a red-head and something that appeared to be an Albino of African origins. Another blond girl, light inhuman stare not so much as impolite but more definite then what passes for human regards these days.

"It ever gets tiring of just talking to yourself?" reminded the light Albino African.

"That it does" whispered Lain.

"Drink?" said the Red-haired girl waving a sea-shell with a light sheen of clear liquid inside of it.

She grabbed it,it was a thing light almost metallic. A gulp and a mixture of hard alcohol and something else fell down her throat.

"Almost like going clubbing again with **アリス****(arisu)" she whispered**

"Looks like there doesn't seem to be so much distance between her and you these days" mentioned the Red-head.

"So afraid of me and so uncomfortable…….." she kept saying as she poured some more into the seashell.

"I am seeing a lot in you that scares you more then the whole human race worshipping you as a God?" Continued ye olde Ginger.

:"I am not a God, I wouldn't be comfortable making that same distinction on you." Said Lain.

"You knew that humanity was just a step on a ladder that stretches farther then you can imagine…." Replied the other Girl.

"She should be crying at that point." Said the blond also sitting at the table.

"Not our first meeting." Replied the Red-head.

"Last time she wanted to deal with the migrants that she believed would pull one of the world's democracy into the Dark Age." Continued the other girl.

"It is good to remember……….." said Lain "I really did build this world a long time ago?"

"You've survived the foundation and your own work crashing down on you by definition that makes you a step up from most "deities"." Said the light-skinned slightly energetic Red haired girl.

"Hell blondie here……." At that the girl slightly winked and then pointed her finger across the table " Well Char,you build your own version of hell and your own version of Heaven."

"That Artic Gulag you build for yourself? It goes well?"

A slight look of respect from a blond who usually didn't have much for anyone but himself.

"I don't see Cypher at this table." Replied Char.

"He seems quite taken with our lil Lu here, wants to move on, still has mixed feelings about moi but then so it seems do everyone else….." said the Red-haired sighing slightly.

"Absolute power for the asking never made much sense." Said Char

"At one point you were all for it." Replied the Girl "In fact Lain here wouldn't exist without your good work."

"This universe cannot survive on the restrictions based on the potential of others, your demiurge completely agrees with me on this one……" continued the light-skinned Girl never looking away from Lain.

"Your old Manichean loved their black and red….." said the Girl "At the end of the day being willing to preserve human beings no matter their quality or quantity was always a very powerful act of faith."

"I still reel from the Shoah of these last years." Replied Lain "I can tell that I probably won't even think of it in the next weeks."

"But then "Hell" I made it." Sighed Lain "Crap work but we all make mistakes…..I will come up with something better next time."

"More booze?" replied the Girl

"A tad later…." Said Lain

Char looked at her with an expression that bordered on incredulity and then with an open look of acute horror.

"I believe long ago and I believe your story needs to be told….you were represented in Gundam as a man set on destroying the old order both of your people and of earth." Started out Lain with a look that belied power on a scale very few people could understand.

"You had a clumsy way of doing it, I saw these nice French "BDs" about you as a different person a formula driver if you will…. That was before Japanese cars would dominate the world." Continued Lain "An egomaniacal formula driver didn't look like they ever trusted you to go near Toyota…..unlike your snake cousins."

"I am not on trial here." Replied Char "But keep going……………you know everything anyway."

A shrug from the blond then he grabbed and slid 2 of the shells towards him simply by looking at them.

"For someone who is supposed to be God of the Wired,you don't seem all there when it comes to dealing with inanimate objects." Continued Char "Frying someone's mind isn't going to impress me……much."

A long stare at Lain then a bow.

"The Wired was never a metaphor for the Internet,Char." Said Lain "Only for the web of predjudices and of the unconcious that really rules our lives."

"The internet makes it a lot easier to touch it though kinda of like a clue."

"We see the French as these fallen Gods and the Nazies and the Japanese as the real winners of World War 2 …..we have forgotten what made Americans rise above everything." Continued Lain "Our real "Leader" so to speak".

"Shame it took Dubious to remind me of it." Said Lain "I did learn a nice way of grabbing people's attention and their throats from him though………"

"Heh"

"After your actions alienated your people, you kept falling for that Indian Girl ." said Lain "Whom seem to have appeared in that nice show Revolutionary Girl Utena……also in that Alien Versus Predator series."

"I don't think you ever were that mush in Esoteric knowledge anymore then you were in dueling…" said Lain "Humanity wanted you to be that crazy Pink haired girl instead of that Blond killer who'd almost wiped them out."

"Same pink haired girl called Lightning duking it out against big Red robots in Final Fantasy XIII." Murmured Lain "Quite a comeback you made eh?"

"Dubious did ask if you were still throwing rocks…" continued Lain "Still tossing pierres on this poor Earth?"

"Anyway That crazy Japanese women who lost her Indian buddy to the Alien and Predator clustermess on that odd world." Whispered Lain " Hell of a way to lose Victoria to a bunch of monsters trying to duke it out."

"Keep going,you lil --- see what happens." Replied Char.

"You will spank me if I do?"said Lain "Have fun staring at a blue screen,I will blow and I will cry but you won't be getting much work done ."

"Still the show goes on and I don't feel like blowing my brains out my snake buddy." Went on the Chatelaine

"That Japanese woman hikes off after the Predators, ends up doing all kinds of cool stuff." Whispered Lain "Then came that story about the Predator with a red mask with a red spike on it like the face of your Gundamn…….seem he ended up maiming his buddy then got taken by the Aliens."

"Them crazy Alien gypos………although that is not quite the right metaphor for them" said Lain "Then his maimed buddy who survived ends up fighting some kind of PredAlien and of course he wins."

The Red haired Girl nods to her to keep going.

"We for some reasons come back to that story of that Japanese woman running around with the Predators and in this story she is not their buddy…..she kills everyone of them and ends up being nice to the humans." Said Lain

"Odd how fast that storyline changed, odd that the humans took her back with open arms." Continued Lain "I think that since AlienPreds don't really need to interact with humans all that much…it would make sense for them to kiss your butt and take you back as some kind of symbiosis. Especially since APs can play both sides not to mention they are extremely extremely rare.."

Lain took one long look of pity on the Blond who looked quite stoic through the whole discussion.

"You know any of these facts are meaningless on their own but you put them together and they start to make some sense." Said Lain "Something happened to you after you did everything to raise your own people up, you felt betrayed and when those you hurt and killed were willing to lock you in your very own Versaille you choose to pretend to go along with it…."

"Hell in the end you were alone, Char Aznable turned into something else with no Indian Girl chasing after him anymore." Said Lain "No matter what was said in Utena, you ended up losing her…………that was the cruelest lie of them all."

"They're human, personal relations don't see to mean as much as to types like me or you." Went on Lain "I am pretty sure they didn't know what you had in store with them, lucky for you or not I don't know."

"But they couldn't change you and they couldn't make you forget the old ways." Lain looked up to a very different Sky through a circular Skylight "Ways I've put behind me or tried to. "I don't know why even with the poison I've heard I still love you."

"What makes you think I want you to love me." Replied Char "I don't understand you I don't see what you'r trying to achieve..you're a highly intelligent child but that mentality isn't how you go through life."

"You could have been like a mother to me. In fact you were a Mother to me" Said Lain "Maybe I should be a mother to you Mr. Char? I don't like Versaille, I dislike this hall of mirrors and these corners that smell of death."

"I don't think you like your hair being dyed Pink either……….." continued Lain.

"What did I do wrong?" murmured Char looking distantly in the distance.

"Not always a good idea to help your enemies went they're stranded on the side of the road…." Said Lain as she snapped a stick that seemed to grow off the table.

A light from her fingers and the stick's end seemed to glow. The smell of charcoal and cider went across the room as she put the stick down.

Eyes that were used to staring at a Sun looked at eyes that were getting used to staring at a computer.

"I don't see much Pink in your hair these days, not much こさい or joy in your actions…."

"What does Joy mean to you Lain." Said the Red Haired girl who'd been looking at the exchange as one would look to someone playing tennis against a wall.

"Everything seems connected to it…" said Lain the aura of predatory awareness dissipates into thin air.

Char looks at both of them.

"That is it?That is all I get, these ravings from this animal…………."

"Ah my Snake, my **さいと **there is so much more then your life and the hall of mirrors that is humanity…."

"At the end of the day, I don't pay any heed to any of that bs anyway." Continued Lain "I am not some Ninja Assassin or whatever else, I am not a boy named Hope and I am who I am."

"How Humanity remembers me means nothing to me, ありす was what always mattered to me…..all the powers all the bs I would give it up in an instant if it meant being reunited with her."went on Lain.

No tears stained her eyes just a look of quiet and utter concentration went across her face.

Char looked around for a while at the Albino, the Invictus, at the Red Haired girl still staring at Lain.....then at the other Blond, the quiet one, small female but quite muscular.

The look the other blond gave her was one of quiet depth and unique in its absence of fear.

"It is like the Resurection of the Alien all over again….." murmured Char taking down a few shots.


	7. Chapter 7

Shift

The girl with the black hair, the red seemed to have faded, with a gesture like blowing a kiss caught Lain's attention. "So you are God, the Universe….." whispered Lain, whose voice sounded very steady given the circumstances.

"You talkin' to me?" said the girl, "Char" shot Lain a warning glance. A shrug from Lain, more of resignation then anything else. " I don't know if you're an Angel, I was blessed with the ability to see what others didn't." Lain continued…..

"You can't just take a break or relax?" said the girl "I remember everything, my memory is the one that matters." Lain smiled "You don't rewrite it or edit it?"

"You still have trouble with Math?" came across the table and a wave of a hand "Need some extra encouragement?"

Lain looked at the table, at the sky that seemed like nothing on earth. The air seemed a bit more complex as well. A long time ago, a nightclub somebody pointing a gun at her….people falling apart around her. A light purple tunic over what she was wearing."Took my time in healing your brain, I assure you the damage and the pain will pass." the dark haired girl said flashing some electronic gizmo in her hand then putting it down.

Lain looked to sleeves that were loose enough to allow movement and yet oddly restrictive at the same time she whispered "Well I still have my soul. ".The dark haired girl looked at Lain, replied, as she picked up a shot glass from the table, a slight drain as she put it back on the table "And your ass?" . "Likewise" said Lain with a quiet nod.

"My universe, my rules….you can live with that." said the girl. "Oh sweet Mary….." 'Char' mumbled from his seat.


	8. Chapter 8

Layer 15: Dreams

"What about absolute power?"

"It corrupts absolutely?"

"…."

Lain looked up from a table, above to the walls above the lowered platform. "Where thy city? Who thy people? What thy name?" whispered Lain.

"I would need to get a boyfriend or maybe a girlfriend." replied God looking quite interested, there wasn't the visible kind of "power" you'd get with other manifestations. The wired was always easy for her, she could tell who was who and who could back something up.

Moving onwards, she'd been able to tell who had a different reading then others. Water started dripping from the stones walls around them, smelling slightly of the sea.

"I don't think they will try and depict you as anything?" said Lain. The dark haired girl looked back, the same sense of purpose that had drawn Lain to her, the same thing that was almost fatherly in her. "I don't think I'll ever hear you ask why?"

A slight tingling caught Lain's attention for a second, a look across a table that looked like it had been aged for quite a long time. "You make a description of that individual, of what happened to that individual, you let it sit and then maybe it affects him or it doesn't….." said the dark haired girl almost smiling.

"At a loss words ? Hiding from the truth?" God continued as she moved her hands around in an odd slight motion a grin touched her lips.

"Not everyone comes to him, in fact a precious few do….." said the girl with light blonde hair, a slight twist of her nails which were considerably longer then normal. She looked different from the other individuals, much more self-controlled and much more aware. She'd left a few furrows on the table.

"Where does this lead? I can tell I am not monopolizing your time or even a fraction of your attention." said Lain. A quiet move and a twist slightly below her belt line. A .45 automatic laid on the table, a slight move of her fingers and the magazine was besides it, the weapon on safe.

A wave of the girl's hand "The belt? I could use it." A slight look from Lain over to Char who at this point seemed to be either completely disgusted or somewhat amused by the spectacle. A slight move to the hand and she slid the belt excluding the pouches and grabbed the rest.

"There is a Wired system here, there is a way to connect to it?" she said looking over at the "Big Yahhh" and crossing her hands over the back of her head.

"You could write about the Dreams?"

"…."

"Behold the flying circus?"

"Dreaming about being an Ogre violating someone else?"

"Who else sends these kind of signals?"

"Still down for Breakfast?"


	9. Chapter 9

The friend in the Universe

"Well hell, let them try to spin ethnic cleansing because that is exactly what they're asking for these days." Lain said as she looked back at Yah, "I asked you as question a long time ago…for you, not so much for me." replied God, that same intense focus in her eyes.

"I wouldn't believe in what we decided was some kind of divinely sanctioned sweep against a certain ethnicity." the girl in the purple suit replied looking carefully over at the Alpha and her sidearm laying on the table.

"I don't commit mass murder, those souls at the end of the day…..they are parts of me. I take a substantial amount of these parts back to me. Sometimes these parts choose to act differently then I see how to go about getting them to pay closer attention." was Yah quiet response. Her hands swept the table in a gesture elegant and careful.

"Earth, so far from Selene and so close to the Universe?" said Lain. "Creation, if you are looking for a nice word for the Universe…. No your planet couldn't come up with anything nice for something that envelops it." Yah said.

"Sphere?" said Lain

"A name for something entirely banal, doesn't buy you breakfast." was the dark haired girl( God)'s response.

" I got to pick a name for the Universe? I can come up with something." said Lain looking slightly over at Char "I got no dog in that fight."

"No talking about the devil's privates going inside of God? Going to lose your edge if you carry on like that." whispered Lain. "Just another little man who thinks he's God…."

The dark haired girl interrupted "Not an attitude I am against."

"By that logic you could call yourself God without being him? Somehow you're the closest thing to a Deity I've ever met."

"I am the only "thing" you've ever met close to being me." was Yah's response. The table looked as hard as anything Lain had ever seen ,the smell of saltine water spreading from the city above. "Sel….." Lain said looking upwards.


	10. Chapter 10

The Wired hath no fury

"No name yet?" the dark haired girl said, smiling over a table that dominated the entire hollow with a gun laying on the table. Lain move a hand almost distractedly "Why are there no names?".

"Behold I saw a flying circus…do you know why Char's background stays so sensitive?" said God a smile a hand help up as a warning, changing the subject almost on a nickel.

"It is a trump card, an individual with another past, one that no one could ever fully understand." Lain said "The closest thing this world has to a permanent….."

"I think Cypher once told me that sometimes he…." Lain continue stared at her purple outfit. Looked at the girl, nothing particularly fancy but something extremely utilitarian in the heavy outfit she wore.

"Respects me?" said Yah, the dark haired girl. "It is a crime to bring the dead back to life, sometimes it can't be helped."

"Sometimes some individuals have to figure out the truth for themselves." continued God.

"She would deny her own humanity, call it overrated." said Char "I may have some skeletons in my closet but this one is a catastrophe""An existence that is an entire paradox, an existence that is a pillar of the world and it is all so much more and so much less…." said Lain

"You talking to me?" said God

"It is a source of major instability…." continued Iwakura.

"A bit ah wet behind the ears?" replied Yah.


	11. Chapter 11

Layer 16: Free Will

"Do that again and God or no God…" said Lain looking pointedly at Char. "He is my guest and will be treated as such." said Yah "Although I appreciate you coming over to me first, more then you can understand at that."

"You give it time and you will be ready, you don't and you will find yourself a bit like a child trying to run circles around a world you don't quite understand." continued Yah.

She got off the Table in what seemed to be a blur "It bothers quite a few to have to depend on me that much…" She looked again like a dark haired girl with a stronger disposition then most. There was something almost masculine and intensely feminine about it.

"It is a matter of connection, I like being connected to others and being able to depend on these connections….." said Lain "Everyone is connected and must learn to keep these connections viable and open."

"You are afraid of me?" said Yah "There was a time you'd have tried to visit your wrath on me."

You are not a false God, you are not here to pay for our transgressions, I can't take you. motioned Lain

You are not broken, you are not in particular trouble and you will find one strong connection leads to others. motioned God walking over to Lain.

The connection motioned Lain a slight smile looking at the dark haired girl.

"So what do you know my friend?"

"I know there is going to be hundreds of years of consequences for this cycle…" said Lain looking acutely aware of how Alien the sky looked even as the dark haired girl slowly held her hand. A another hand slid down her backside.

"Kind of hard to describe actual experiences over what someone else says they are?"

"You do know who I think about when I touch myself, that is got to be some kind of divine insight.""I choose not to compromise free will."

"Arisu wouldn't know free will if it bit her on the …..""Would she?"


	12. Chapter 12

_Drawn in your way_

"_I believe I can work with him somewhat, I know enough about his background…that his quirks and his other issues shouldn't be an issue." said Lain _

"_You don't really have a choice….." said Char, leaning against the table._

"_I have a choice, now and always." went Lain pacing back from the table looking up at the sheer walls that ringed the hollow completely, there was a fairly decently sized curtain by the table._

_An albino one of the many individuals looking at the overplay "It is kind of hard to always live that way, always talking to yourself."_

_God mentioned a hand holding across Lain's shoulder and the other one still inching slightly behind her back._

_The sound of water receding above the hollow, a sky that seemed to fill the top of the hollow to the point that some of the moisture on the wall near the very top seemed to glitter, from the rest of the city so far above._

"_Arisu didn't like me too much when I put on that Alien costume, she is still terrified of me in her own way. You know my answer, you've known my answer for years." mentioned Lain._

_There were connections that were breaking across her body, points that made it harder to connect to her, to control her in familiar territory. Here it was familiar territory, some of the people here, the non-natives who were here with the Big Yah….could understand these new points very well._

"_You live in a world with connections you view as wrong, I like bike riding, I like what that implies if you don't-you don't. It doesn't mean it has to imply just one thing, just that some things aren't quite as easy to grasp to hard or aren't that important." mentioned God._

_Lain turned around "You remind me of Arisu, the same kind of shine, same kind of ability to go out there and get things done….it is not that you are omnipotent from our way of thinking, it is that you are so comfortable with yourself as you are."_

"_I like it when someone whose had contact with me tries to portray me as they've known me. Rather then just the way I should be portrayed…" mentioned Yah_

" _So if I have a problem with indigestion or my dreams don't reflect what I want….you will just fix that for me like it is less then nothing?" said Lain _

"_Trying to read my mind? Still a peeking Tom?" whispered Yah_

"_You said stuff as if you are me, as if I am making my decisions. There was a time when you were the only individual in this Universe…are you still the only one here?" mentioned Lain._

"_Another time, another place, you are not slowing me down." said Yah, the same look of slight focused interest, the look of someone who was familiar with practically everything._

"_Don't hit me and don't hit anyone else….unless that individual is comfortable with that." said Yah_

"_I can do that, I get occasionally angry but that can change given time." replied Lain, appraising the dark haired girl. _

"_Can you reach out to multiple manifestations of the same individual on a day to day basis?"_

_Replied God. _

"_You are as real as the ground under my feet…as the wired in my hands, as the feel of Arisu's hands." Lain said looking to slowly stretch her legs, looked at the ground, the lighting around the table's edges showed slightly darker rock then normal._

_A shudder, a very real shudder, the images of the first meeting with God….so long ago. _

"_If you are pointing out that imagining better locals, is a form of primitive manifestations and I could transfer my behavior from vibrations to full on manifestations, without actually outright dying." said Lain_

"_No one living has ever done that…..as far as you know." said Yah. _

"_You will come back to the wired and start posting some stuff I can read?" said Lain_

"_In one form or another, I am always out there. You said you would be able to contact different manifestations? You understand what I am asking?"_

"_Going from vibrations, to manifestation…..I could do it." said Lain "It would change things, follow the extension of Serialization." a slight hiccup as she says the last word. _

"_Death doesn't lead to people getting special insight and it doesn't grant control, meeting me can change them, stay awhile."_

_Said God. _

_The slight mortal girl in the purple dress, touched the walls around the hollow, walls of dark stone closer to Basalt and closer to the ocean's foundation. Not basalt though, the texture seemed hard enough that it would chip but the wall would…._

"_If I have to wait till I die before I can manifest, then I can always use some training wheels." said Lain_

"…_.what I am trying to say is that you've done it in the past and you will do it in the future." say Yah with a seemingly refreshing lack of "waiting". _

"_Pinky swear?""Why not?"_


	13. Chapter 13

Layer 17 Manifest City

"There are fields, in a lot, behind so much wire with a blackened stump rising out of the ground. There is no radiation there, one day people will live here again after a few summers have passed." said Lain quietly her eyes looking at a sky that seemed to rotate especially weirdly over this hollow by the streets above.

A look at Char, a look of pity that seemed to just take this man into account "It doesn't matter what you say, what you do for you will never go there out there and take a look at that area. You will never see the way some of the people act out there."

"To you as long as you get to keep your personal reality and destroy others that you dislike, you will continue to think you are God…"

Yah looked from the two, her back slightly turned towards Char, the attention span of a being who even Black holes deferred to staring at Lain.

Lain looked at the table of wood that seemed completely nature of walls that seemed to form something between a square and a circle.

"You believe, you actually believe in something more then what you see and the vibrations all around you." said God a hand clasped around Lain's hand.

Lain almost bowed, then snapped her other hand around the Alpha's.

"In time a world will be forgotten, it must start anew. I believe my time spent on this world was best spend trying to show we had some idea of what was going on, instead of blindly trying to survive trying to run in a race no one was going to win." Lain mentioned.

No trace off the schoolgirl, a fleeting memory of Arisu gone into something she could not fully understand for now….maybe Lain would be back for her or maybe that girl was lost forever to her.

Char's hand fell off her back as something pushed him back.

"He is so good not only does he do fracticide but he gets off on torturing people on his side, including me, you got some strange menagerie going there my friend." saying Lain as she turned to God.

She'd fallen into part of this reality too hard, too many people too willing to try and get her as something to show off; as something to try and control. True to his singled minded nature, to his fear and his own growing breakdown…Char had done everything to try and hurt her. What was irritating was he thought it was a boding experience.

"Right and that is why you are with me. As for anomalies, I had your back along with anyone who gets caught in this wake." said Alpha a hand slapped on Lain's back a bit harder then normal.

Different accent and different muscle structure, larger then most females on earth, God didn't look that different but the manifestation was still not based on regular earth standards.

"I connect to the dead, I see their information leaking from what is going on around us….they don't seem to hate you." said Lain

"It was never all about me, there were other connections and they had to be met. These anomalies will lead to more looking towards seeing a God instead of finding their faith in vibrations, in parlor tricks in the mind reading skills of a few." continued Lain.

"You like to use the soliloquy, good for someone who isn't quite that advanced in age…" said Alpha

"How long am I going to be here?" said Lain

"With me, for a while." said Yah( same as Alpha) "You will see a lot happen to this world, you know why it has to happen but you want…."

"It has to end at one point or another." Lain "People died out in that Lot, to serialize this anomaly over and over again….."

"You are not the firestarter and you don't make these decisions, you want to learn manifest and you want to be able to make them someday…" said God

"I wouldn't ever want to be you. " said Lain

A hand on her hair.

"I don't want to visualize you as a devil trying to tempt me into something but there is a part of me that cries out at time for the things that….

A hand on her forehead.

…..have been done."

A hand on her backside.


	14. Chapter 14

She said

"Iwakura….."

"Hai?"

She wakes up, still groggy from that meeting. A hand on her shoulder….

"So what color table-cloth did you pick? You know to make this all the much cheerier, Alpha."

"You want to go over my knee…?"

Lain's eyes snapped open, she was crashed out on someone's chair with a blanket thrown across her. Her clothes lay by the chair. She didn't think the floor had ever been cleaned , wooden and something close to pine. Looking like it stayed bacteria or dirt free simply because of the environment it was in. The chair was lower by a curtain.

Alpha looked over her, a left cheek looking slightly bruised. Iwakura looked at it then looked back at the ceiling.

Her eyes looked at the ceiling, painted light yellow.

"Why do you want that connection?" God asked

"People don't connect that way, they hate those that do. It is disturbing to behold."

"What cruelty you get, what anger a normal person would take out of this….."

A light pat at that on her hand. A man walks in with the same body structure as Alpha, slightly different from others and eerily beautiful in its own way.

"The wired never responded well to angry people, it is what those people forgot." murmured Lain staring at both. "I know what that bruise means."

She watches Alpha and someone else discuss a bunch of other stuff. Looks at the connection between these two, especially these two. Then looks off, the humming in the walls ( light Mahoney painted slightly like plaster) A sharp pain on the lower part of her body and she turns around, as quick as to make the motion itself look instant.

"He is like you that one…..he is not part of the sphere of the normal wired from earth" Lain looked at the Alpha as she said that.

As the stranger leaves the room, through a curtain by the door.

"You wouldn't be able to pronounce his name if you wanted…."son of God" is about the closest name you need to know about that one."

"And "sometimes" he is proud of his father?"

Lain got her clothes on. Slight adjusting and she didn't look all that bad and she sat on the chair.

"Bed?" from the Alpha.

"I am about to lie down….." said Lain looking at the bruise on Alpha's cheek.

"Don't hit me, if you hit someone close to me, you are hitting me." said Alpha looking straight at Lain

"I always liked that particular connection." said Lain "Didn't think you'd play the role of the angry father so well."

"Spoil the belt….."

"I will cry."

"Again…well just lay on the bed and just turn over." said the Alpha comfortably patting Lain towards the bed. "You got a day to figure out what you did and then your left cheek on your butt will look like my left cheek."

"It is perfect symmetry."

"We could do both."

"I like that connection but since you kind of have to feel my pain to inflict it at the same time…thank you but no." said Lain "Unless that is what you really want."

Alpha almost smiled as she wagged her finger at her.

"Inflicting…that is like behold, it is nice and it is respectful but doesn't cover your situation. Your honesty does you in in a lot of ways but it elevates you farther then you understand."

Lain's eyes remained remarkably dry through the encounter.

"A feeling like a spanking would make this much less unreal….."

"You are young and yes your school days behind you, not all of them but you can still go over my lap."

Alpha replied

"If you are to be my life, to watch over, as my creator father/mother then yeah. Makes more sense then I like to think."

"You still have done right by me." said Alpha "Just erase the stain on my cheek, I am not going to break your back or try to."

"So no eye for an eye?" said Lain

"My witness."

"My God, my friend and my father and my mother."

"I am not looking forward to feeling spanked the night after this one ." whispered Alpha.

"The way you refer to someone else in the first-person, that is a soliloquy?" said Lain "Everyone else would said Lain is looking forward to getting spanked."

"You haven't fallen." said Alpha.

"Did he fall? Or did he choose to be that way? That stranger…."

A night later as Lain laid on the bed head pressed on her pillow, feeling her butt smart. It hurt quite a bit, strike after strike and she'd felt that the Alpha could have kept going for a while.

Someone rubbing her butt as she lay there, about to pass out. Hadn't have someone connect, like someone was laying on with a heavy belt on her left cheek.

Not quite what she'd been expecting, things seem to dwindle out of focus. Someone helping her get back into her underclothes, passing out.

"I like good dreams." was what Lain murmured as she passed out.


	15. Chapter 15

Brilliance

There is much to be said about Alpha's host , there is much to say about presences who shape the wired and keep that divine spark awake….but they are the remnants of a world - they are in a sense the world. They pale easily before the manifestation of a Universe that more Galaxies them there are people across the world.

Lain had a belief about connection but that connection to the Universe was different, the feeling of uncertainty. That and the way God manifested in a different young woman every day(まにち/manichi).

"I remember meeting you the first time, you looked worried as if something terrible was about to happen." said Lain

"Your struggle is with yourself, not with that guy. His struggle is over, he lost." said Alpha

"Well I can see that." said Lain "Another connection lost in a world of fading connections."

"I see the same girl with differences everyday…I want the world to connect to that." continues Lain

"Torture…..death is never quick, thank you for that. I wouldn't have it any other way." said Lain "People forget that, you can't experience anything like it in my side. That is more real then any torture…"

"You will stop eating with your hands? You will stop forgetting not to do things?" said Alpha "Because otherwise it is bed and if it goes on…..:"

A slight pass at Lain's belt and then her butt.

"Thumb's up?" said Alpha gesturing at the same time.

A slight hand going down on Lain's face. "Necromancer….." said Lain a a flicker of respect and a smile actually crossing her face. "Doesn't seem you are so keen on changing others as they come back to life."

"They come as they are, you don't bring a guy back totally changed and perfect. He works it out on his own or doesn't…" says Alpha

"Thorny issue?" said Lain

"Guy got a break, didn't know what to do with it….out of your hands." said Alpha

"I failed." said Lain

"You need to wash your back. " said Alpha

"I just got a heart attack, a warning of things to come?" said Lain

"I worry about the bigger picture too much, the individual wants to change, the individual connects outwards. I don't wash my back, I don't like what I have become…" said Alpha

"Sleep on it, think about it" murmured Alpha

"Who keeps disconnecting my NAVI's power cord anyway?" said Laim

"The Big Yah obviously." murmured Alpha

"Well some new updates would be kind of nice once in a while, I guess it does need to shutdown for those updates at night or when I need to do something else." said Lain

A Universe represented by someone whose methods were the root of a lot of all internal conflict in Lain's head. Some things made sense and some didn't make so much sense.

Crashing out, waking up and then dealing with Alpha was proving to be a workable experience.

"Know you are supposed to concentrate on the manifestation the one day by day, not that one identity of mine that you liked." said Alpha.

"Your other "manifestations" are all as handy at making me remember stuff….." said Lain

"Tres ethical….." was Alpha's response

"All connections have to have an ethical basis otherwise they just break down given enough time." said Lain

"Your boy will never understand the future, I can't criticize your decisions too much but he should have rotted in Nam…..although that hobby, spanking thing of his could be useful" continued Lain

"Bring him in the future and well the Wired will be a bit of a difference place then now." said Lain

"From the dawn of time?" said Alpha

"Hai." said Lain

"Also my agreement of how I handle my affairs was with you, if I am here with you. I don't need a man like that telling me what needs to be done. He sure doesn't follow a steady set of behavior pattern, unless you consider betrayal a pattern." went on Lain

"Hajimemashite sir but you don't think clearly enough to betray anyone…much. That is all I got to say to him" said Lain

"Given some time and a guiding hand in the right places, you will be just fine." said Alpha.

"As long as it is from you." said Lain "You remind me of Arisu before she just got caught up in…(a sideway look at Alpha) everything."

"No matter where you are, you will always be with her." said Alpha

"My very own manifest destiny" said Lain

"And you like when I remind you of her." continued Alpha

"How could I forget." said Lain


	16. Chapter 16

Far Away

There is a sky it is stretching out, slightly off color but not that different. The houses are spaced fairly closely, the salt water pulls back whenever someone walks across it.

"So many lies." said Lain

"Still crying?" said Alpha "Your war is over."

"That means there will be a shift in balance." said Lain "Otherwise people's connections will suffer because of the imbalance."

She looked straight at Alpha.

"Unhindered, even though you are always connected to others." said Lain.

"You will never let it end." said Alpha "That is the problem, I don't let things go to that extent."

Lain took look at a sky, there were no towers up there, the buildings made for an actual flat skyline as far as she could see.

"So hmm my friend, give me a reason to do something, to be the same person somewhere else." said Lain looking right at Alpha.

"Whatever happens, remember."

"Can I have breakfast?" said Lain

"I will make it, I won't buy it" said the Alpha

She walked the water impossible to reach, driven away from her footsteps. The rope bridges overhead, made of a circular pattern that provide complete coverage.

"When it rains?" said Lain "The water stays put….?"

"Different world." said Alpha holding out her hand

"The Big spanking in the sky eh?" said Lain "I always believed."

"A nice pink heart." said Alpha "I will make you one, with a nice 55 on it."


	17. Chapter 17

Alpha and the Orangina

"So you call me using a girl's name, then it sounds like a guy….." said Lain

"About to drink the orange koolaid?Afraid of the naked truth?" whispered the Alpha.

A rap on her knuckles, attention returning to her surroundings.

"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else…..afraid of you, for different reasons maybe." said Lain looking a bit more aware.

"You don't scare easy." said the Alpha

"You share information well…" said Lain

"You look decent in velvet as always." said the Alpha

"With some nice encouragement, I just get that much further." said Lain a slight impish smile went over her features.

A look at a sky that seemed to be slightly bluer then it should be, clouds that looked like they stretched to an insane distance.

"Inside a star?" said Lain

"Something like that." said Alpha

"Not much of master of illusions, I do master my environment well enough." said Lain looking tantalizing around at the architecture that was a lot more open towards the top then would be normal on earth. Figured if there was salt water at the ground level, they wouldn't place the doors out there.

"When did the Universe became self-aware?" said Lain

"Aeons ago…." said Alpha

"So the connections you weave? The number of connections at all times…..for always?" whispered Lain, at the end of the day Lain had been impressed by Alpha's grasping of deeper issues because that is what you expect of well God.

"You had fun slumming?" said the Alpha

"Yeah but the street life, the lives of people who actually live beats the lives of failed Doctors and failed academics and yeah shrinks." said Lain

"That damn shrinking ray…" said Alpha

"No more." replied Lain looking askance over at Yahweh.

"Little ruby slippers on your feet?" said Yah( Alpha)

"Wrong crossover…." said Lain looking at her sandals.

"Or some Nike's?" said the Alpha

"And remember…thank you for the help with the NAVI, friend." said Lain looking over at her wrist mounted NAVI.

"Tres future chic, About these oranges?" said Alpha

"Why forgo this? " replied Lain a quiet look at the girl of her dreams.

A look at the streets, at the clouds above."It is your perspective, the way you act that convinced me there were other worlds …." said Lain a quirk of her lips.

"That doesn't make you any less significant." said Alpha.

"I'd rather not know how a world without me would be like. " continued Alpha

"That is not a crime, friend, that just answered my riddle….." said Lain

"Good."


End file.
